Dear Barclay Banks, I'm sure you are unaccustomed to receiving plangent missives from strangers in this a common Miami Beach nightclub, but before you crumple these lines, Miss Banks, consider the following: I did indeed attempt to approach the V.I.P. booth where you and your attractive friends loitered behind a velvet rope, but in point of fact, Miss Banks, a muscled gentleman elected to impede my progress; I was pushed yet forward in a frontal repetition of beseeching, according to the infamous Newtonian law of reactive force, but upon encountering further implacable opposition, I was at last impelled onto a corner of the dance floor, where I fell into this traditional epistolary medium, this letter in a bottle, if you will, in which, yes, I attempt to woo you, Miss Banks, as women were once wooed when America was young; I am, it is true, Miss Banks, a gentleman of a certain age, and I do not, I'm afraid, have billions stashed in Swiss bank accounts, nor do I, Miss Banks, have a line of sportswear retailing nationally; in point of fact, I am lately somewhat financially embarrassed, so make no mistake, Miss Banks, my only legitimate offer is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, to meet and fraternize with a true example of the American unwashed. Why? Well, the rude sun interrupts all our frolics, every summer has its hurricane season, and I, Dan Danielson, am able to comport myself like a facsimile of the American aristocracy; I use galoshes, like a civilized person, I wear hats, and I have been known, Miss Banks, to wow the ladies with x-treme embraces that exist only in my arsenal; yes, Miss Banks, consider this: I am a romantic, pure and simple, I perfume myself with a very masculine musk that is sure to excite your pheromones, and I have also trimmed the thatches of hair in my Southern hemispheres; I once composed a screenplay with my writing partner, Mac Pirelli, the greengrocer; there was interest from one of the production companies in the greater Hollywood area; it would be easy to retool this screenplay, Miss Banks, if need be. If you are not interested in this offer, could you please pass it along to your close, personal friend, Opal Lorenzo. Most sincerely, D. Danielson.

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I can do little but illuminate for you the nature of flat broke, Miss Banks; do you have any idea what it is like to be flat broke, Miss Banks, curious minds would like to know if you, for example, have been confined to shopping at the dollar store, Miss Banks, have you, for example, tried to counterfeit American legal tender notes with only such resources as may be obtained from the dollar store, Miss Banks? Or have you, perhaps, fraudulently entered the practices of certain orthopedic surgeons, complaining of the malingering pain in your back, which disallows, Miss Banks, regular activities, including a nine-to-five wage-oriented employment, in the hopes that this surgeon will be able to verify your fraudulent injury securing, for life, your disability payment? Or have you, Miss Banks, married a Chinese national, for the sum of $15,000 and then prepped yourself with flash cards for the interview with federal immigration authorities, in the hopes that you, Dan Danielson, will be able to pass the exam, and secure the bulk of the payment due? Perhaps, Miss Banks, you have not found yourself regularly visiting those ill-named repositories that preserve the genetic material of the male of the species, where you have been sullied by the consumption of lurid photographic materials, in order that you might discharge into a waxy paper cup, never knowing the identities of such offspring, however many dozens there are, who circumambulate the globe with your high, meditative forehead, and your aquiline nose; no, Miss Banks, nor have you attempted to telemarket the elderly of Dade and Broward counties out of their nest eggs by offering them pet insurance; no, Miss Banks, I don't think you know what it's like to suffer as I have suffered, and therefore, Miss Banks, you owe it to yourself to encounter the real America, the hidden America, the hushed and muted America, and all you have to do, Miss Banks, is step over that velvet rope; I saw how your were signaling to me earlier in the evening, Miss Banks, the way you fiddled with your earrings in a heavily symbolized way, and I know that despite your faithless, inept, and bored demeanor, you secretly want me, so please contact me soon, sincerely, Dan Danielson.

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You may well ask what prompts this letter, Miss Banks, and my only reply can be: a rebus of motivations, because where is the man, but inside the man who is inside the man, and when we close in on these lower layers, Miss Banks, then we know that we are in the province of quantum effects, expressed psychologically, don't you agree? Miss Banks, I have been conducting a study, since my earliest days, which were confined to the burg known as Nashua, NH, and from my earliest days what I discovered is that when considering a vexing human problem, such as the departure from my family of the woman who first gave birth to me, the problem can appear to have a variety of facets, as with a proper crystal. Miss Banks; thus: from one vertex of ratiocination, the departure of the woman who gave birth to me is a profound reversal, but from another angle it is a tremendous opportunity, because it was a mere six years later that I hired on as amanuensis to the highly regarded fashion designer,
Elvin Spectacular,
to whom I had written 173 short letters, detailing my qualifications, which qualifications were nothing special, in truth, and if you interviewed my siblings, who remained behind in Nashua, NH, you would recognize that not a one of them has been able, Miss Banks, to travel to a sun-dappled Impressionist city such as the one we occupy tonight, and so the departure of the woman who bore me, and her subsequent violent conclusion; these, Miss Banks, must be considered opportunities; for when I say that Elvin Spectacular was most generous to take me in and employ me for a good seven years when my age argued against such an arrangement, it is probably obvious that I should not have been compelled to perform certain kinds of massage upon Elvin Spectacular, and yet had I not, then I would not have made and lost a fortune as a theorist of men's socks, and had I not made and lost this fortune I would not have the admirable mix of hope and melancholy that I present, nor would I have found the body of Elvin Spectacular in a hotel room, Miss Banks, and I suppose now that it will be obvious which hotel I refer to, viz., the hotel the hotel chain which bears your surname; there were no marks upon the body of Elvin Spectacular, Miss Banks, no signs of foul play, and yet since we were, despite years of not speaking regularly, about to reconvene, in order to see a runway show in the city where you and I now find ourselves, and since I can almost certainly suggest, Miss Banks, that Elvin was excited about the prospect of seeing me, and even more excited at the carrot which I dangled before him, viz., the carrot of forgiveness, it seems certainly the case that he would not under any circumstances have been so despondent as to take his own life; no, Miss Banks, this is certainly not possible, and Elvin, may I add, was a spry sixty-two years of age, at least, Miss Banks, this was his announced age; as such, it is more than unlikely that Elvin Spectacular would, in advance of such an august event--a runway show, and a chance to reconnect with a trusted lieutenant--have fallen precipitously ill. And this leaves only one possible interpretation among the many interpretations I might advance--as regards this mystery wrapped in an enigma--and that is why, Miss Banks, you felt a need to have a man like Elvin Spectacular bumped off? Is it by reason of your voluminous wealth that you fear spies and conspirators everywhere around you? Is it the case that in every photo, Miss Banks, where you effect that insouciant puckering, that you are considering who next ought to be neutralized in order to preserve your impenetrable and walled-in reputation? When you dance on the dance floor, as I just watched you do, Miss Banks, do you think in your pretty little head: hewill die, and she will die, and that pair over there, they will die? And am I right in assuming that I am next, Miss Banks, and that the lines that I write here upon the napkin are liable to be my last? Have you no mercy? Does the fact that I am onto your little game change nothing? Is it not the case that the thing you have most to fear, Miss Banks, is THE MAN WITH NOTHING TO LOSE???